by Bangqing Han
Editions of Haishang hua Used
Haishang hua liezhuan. 1926. Reprint, Taipei: Tianyi chubanshe, 1974.
Haishang hua. Ed. Wang Yuanfang. Shanghai: Yadong tushuguan, 1935.
Haishang hua. Ed. Eileen Chang. Taipei: Crown, 1983.
Haishang hua. Ed. Jiang Hanchun. Taipei: Sanmin chubanshe, 1998.
Notes
1. Eileen Chang noted that the only exception is one line spoken by Lai the Turtle, probably to show that Lai is a northerner.
2. Chapters 1 and 2 of her translation were published in Renditions, nos. 17 and 18 (1982). It seems that Chang did look for a publisher for the full novel. The manuscript, however, never reached the stage where it was publishable.
3. As a result of such deletion, the titles of chapters 10 and 33 have been rewritten.
4. Liu Fu, who was vehement in his condemnation of the introduction of the Rustic Retreat group of characters into this novel, was of the same opinion. See Liu Fu, “Du Haishang hua liezhuan” (On reading Haishang hua liezhuan), in Haishang hua, ed. Wang Yuanfang (Shanghai: Yadong tushuguan, 1935), pp. 21–24.
5. Many of the personal and place names that Chang used proved problematic and have been replaced.
6. Dragon Ma’s personal name in Chinese—Longchi, or dragon pond—suggests that he is a man of great talent (dragon) trapped in a small space (pond), that is, someone with unfulfilled ambition.
THE WORLD OF THE SHANGHAI COURTESANS
Eva Hung
Foreign Concessions and the International Settlement
The transformation of Shanghai from a settlement with a small walled city to a major metropolis began in 1842 with the Treaty of Nanjing that resulted from the Opium War. Shanghai, as one of the five designated treaty ports, was declared open to foreign trade on November 14, 1843. A stretch of rural land bordering the Huangpu River was assigned for the use of several hundred foreign traders, and Western-style houses as well as godowns began to appear.1
The earliest boundaries that marked the areas designated for foreign settlement were the Huangpu River in the east, the Yangjingbang Creek in the south, and present-day Beijing Road in the north; the western boundary was never defined. This land, which remained nominally Chinese, was leased in perpetuity to the foreign powers. It was divided into three settlements: the French concession occupied the area between the Chinese walled city and Yangjingbang Creek;2 the British concession stretched from Yangjingbang to Suzhou Creek, while the United States took up the land along the Huangpu River to the northeast of Suzhou Creek. In 1863 the Americans and the British decided to join forces, turning the areas they occupied into the International Settlement. Since there was no fixed boundary on the western side of the assigned land, there were repeated—and some very successful—attempts to extend the settlements into the Chinese countryside. Each of the foreign concessions had its own administrative setup, police force, and volunteer fire service, while the walled city and the small areas of land bordering the concessions remained under Chinese administration.3 Residents came under the jurisdiction of their respective zones, and a mixed court was established to deal with cases that involved both Chinese and foreign interests. Despite the administrative independence of the different zones, the currencies in common use were the same: the gold-based Spanish Carolus dollar, the Mexican dollar, and the Chinese tael of silver.
In the settlements’ early days, Chinese residents were originally prohibited, but this soon changed. The majority of the employees of foreign firms were Chinese, and Chinese merchants who dealt in silk, tea, opium, and other goods were constantly coming and going. However, what changed the nature of the settlements and the composition of their populations was the refugees, including many wealthy households who rushed there to escape from the peasant uprisings against the Qing government. The first wave of refugees came when the Small Sword Society, which revolted in 1831, occupied the Chinese walled city between 1834 and 1845. By the end of that rebellion, the Chinese population in the settlements had exploded to fifty thousand. An even greater impact came with the Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864), which permanently changed the topography and nature of the foreign concessions. These settlements’ development into a thriving city was linked intrinsically to their huge and ever-increasing Chinese population, which by 1862 had reached half a million. The refugee migrants found in this city not just protection from rebels but also new business opportunities. In 1870 Shanghai became the fifth largest port in the world.
By this time, Chinese people could move quite freely among the various administrative zones in normal circumstances. The major restrictions were related to the walled city, which still upheld the Chinese curfew rule and closed its gates at night; it was also off limits to horse carriages. In such a small area overseen by different administrations, the rules for residents and businessmen were considerably more complex and cumbersome than in other places. For example, all the transport vehicles for hire, such as sedan chairs and rickshas, had to obtain licenses for all three zones.4 It was a situation the locals found they could deal with, however. With time, such Western practices as participating in town councils and obtaining insurance coverage became the norm for well-to-do Chinese.
Brothels in the International Settlement
Since The Sing-song Girls of Shanghai was written before China’s defeat in the Sino-Japanese War of 1895, the Shanghai in this novel predates the city’s industrialization.5 Areas under all three administrations were dominated by commerce and entrepôt trade. The action takes place almost exclusively in the International Settlement as that was where the high-class brothels, or sing-song houses, congregated. During the Taiping Rebellion, high-class brothels were set up in the new lanes, such as Nobility Alley in the International Settlement, with Fourth Avenue (present-day Fuzhou Road) serving as the core area for sing-song houses. Later, the first-class houses moved westward with the expansion of the foreign concessions, while the second-class ones remained around Chessboard Street (present-day Henan Road). Though the French concession was also home to a large number of prostitutes, they belonged mostly to the lower rungs of the ladder, probably because for a long time law and order in the French settlement was less than ideal.
The prosperity of the foreign concessions and the growth of the Chinese population were of course major reasons for sing-song houses to have been established in the International Settlement, but another important reason was that the area was outside Chinese jurisdiction. In the Qing dynasty, officials were strictly forbidden by law to have liaisons with prostitutes. Since this rule did not apply to the foreign concessions, it created a major opportunity for prostitutes to entertain officials of all grades, as well as their associates. That was why, despite their Chinese clientele, all the high-class prostitutes in Shanghai operated in the International Settlement. This situation also brought flourishing business to trades that benefited from the custom of courtesans and their clients, notably tailors, jewelry stores, embroidery shops, fabric shops, restaurants, and food stalls. These were set up in clusters around the core brothel areas. In addition to Chinese prostitutes originating in the areas around Shanghai, there were also establishments serviced by women from other regions and nations (including Japanese, European, and American women). Prominent among the regional groups were two from Guangdong province: the Tanka girls, who lived and worked on boats, and the Cantonese girls, who worked in Cantonese brothels. The only non-Shanghai group that features in this novel is the Cantonese one, represented by their best-known brothel, the Old Banner. The short episode on Cantonese courtesans is of considerable interest as it demonstrates the differences in aesthetic taste and fashion, as well as customs, among different regional groups.
Prostitution establishments, like opium shops, were perfectly legal in the foreign concessions, and there were intermittent attempts to tabulate the number of prostitutes working there. One of the earliest, based on statistics compiled by health officials in 1871, stated that there were 1,632 prostitutes in the International Settl
ement and 2,600 in the French concession. These figures, however, do not differentiate between origin and categories, and neither do they include the majority of unlicensed streetwalkers.6 The main concern of the administrations was to prevent prostitution activities from invading the streets; what went on within the brothels was not considered a major source of nuisance.
Brothels were subject to license fees and taxes and monitored under various police regulations. For the sing-song houses, the fees varied depending on the quality of the house and the number of girls working there. The demarcations among different grades of brothels were reflected in the fee structure; the license fees for mature courtesans offering a full range of service were also considerably higher than those for virgin apprentices. Landlords also charged a higher rent for brothels than for other shops and households.
Since sexual and entertainment services were sought by all classes of people, the prostitutes in Shanghai fell into many categories, which catered to different clienteles. They all have a role to play in this novel. Streetwalkers, or “game birds,” were unlicensed and roamed the teahouses and alleys for custom. They always claimed to be respectable women forced by circumstances to take on the occasional client and often used a small shikumen house as a business base.7 The lowest category establishments were the knocking shops, where sexual services were provided without any complex preliminaries, and it was not unusual for girls to be summoned to the shop only when clients arrived. A slightly higher category was the “flowered opium den,” so called because the women who waited on the smokers in the opium house also offered sexual service. They congregated in the French concession and were mostly set up in shikumen houses. The high-class brothels, or sing-song houses, were divided into two categories: first-class, or changsan (meaning “all three”), and second-class, or yao’er (meaning “one two”).8 The somewhat strange reference to numbers originated with the fees charged: at the first-class houses, the charge for a dinner party or a party call was a flat rate of three dollars, hence “all three”; at the second-class houses, a tea party cost one dollar, and a party call or dinner party two dollars, hence “one two.”9 These names remained long after the charges had gone up with the passing of time. Sing-song houses were marked by a lamp hanging above the front door as well as the names of the courtesans written on red paper posted at the door. Some second-class establishments had a name for the house, such as “Hall of Spring” or “Hall of Beauties,” but the first-class houses were always referred to by the names of their leading courtesans.
While the lower class establishments offered only sexual service and basic amenities such as tea, opium, and tobacco, the sing-song houses served functions other than that of providing sex, food, drink, and drugs. Entertaining in brothels or in the company of courtesans was part of the daily routine for officials and businessmen alike. This is evidenced by the fact that in the late Qing and early Republican eras, tabloid papers specializing in reports on the brothel scene also provided new and prospective clients of sing-song houses with basic information on brothel rules and etiquette to help them fit in. Thus the sing-song house was an important meeting place for friends and business associates, a place where social networks were extended, business discussed, and advice sought and given among friends and colleagues. This was particularly true of the first-class houses whose courtesans were expected to act as a social lubricant and to be discreet.
The Courtesans
Like the establishments they worked for, the higher-classed prostitutes were divided into different grades. The top-class courtesans claimed their lineage from the female minstrels who became popular in Shanghai shortly after the Taiping Rebellion. It is said that the original female minstrels performed storytelling in songs and did not openly sell their sexual favors. They were addressed as xiansheng, a form of respectful address that normally applied to men. This title remained in use even after prostitution became their main business. It was then adopted by first-class courtesans who were also trained in singing and music, often from a young age. (In this translation, the term “maestro” is used to call attention to this unusual application of address and the sense of respect it originally conveyed.) Traces of the facade of respectability remained: clients and courtesans were not permitted to talk directly about establishing a sexual relationship; a third party always acted as matchmaker (this could be a friend, another courtesan, the maid, or the madam). In many cases, even the simple matter of summoning a first-class courtesan to a dinner party in a restaurant also involved some sort of introduction by a person she knew.
At the period depicted in this novel, female minstrels no longer existed, and the word “maestro” referred only to courtesans who worked in first-class houses. The second-class girls, less accomplished and often less good-looking, were addressed as “Miss” (a title also used for other prostitutes, including streetwalkers). In the second-class establishments, there were some girls who only entertained at home and did not answer party calls,10 but it seems that they were a small minority. In this novel, the contrast between the behavior of Jewel (a young courtesan in a second-class house) and her first-class peers such as Green Phoenix and Lute clearly demonstrates the perceived differences between the two categories of girls: second-class courtesans were more blatantly sex-oriented and far less refined in their attempts to ensnare new clients. Thus there was no intended irony when a client praised a courtesan by saying that she was like a respectable woman.
Leading courtesans in Shanghai were minor celebrities and trendsetters in fashion. Readers will notice that while descriptions of the looks of various girls are few and far between, detailed descriptions of their clothes and ornaments can be found in almost every chapter of this novel. This was a period when a well-endowed figure was frowned on, so the women wore tight undershirts to flatten their chests. On top of that, they wore several layers of clothes made variously of silk, brocade, crepe, or fur. There were clear distinctions among clothes worn in the house, for daytime trips, and for dinner parties, with the last being the most ornate. As the practice of footbinding was still at its height, almost the first thing a brothel owner did when she acquired a young apprentice was to bind her feet tightly in order to create the desired form of the “three-inch lotus,” hence the repeated references in the novel to “bound-feet shoes.” Besides exquisite clothes and shoes, a leading courtesan was always adorned with expensive jewelry, mostly gifts from her many clients.11 Instead of individual items, they often asked for sets of jewelry comprising rings, earrings, hairpins, and headbands made of gold, pearls, or green jade.12
The relationship between courtesans was an interesting and tricky one. While those who belonged to the same house were placed on a hierarchical order according to seniority and popularity, courtesans of comparable status from different establishments were guided by much more complex considerations. On the one hand, they were all potential business rivals; on the other, they were well known to each other as they met regularly at parties hosted by their clients. Where the relationship was cold and distant, they avoided addressing each other directly; where the relationship was friendly, courtesans adopted the Manchu term “A ge,” used as both a title and a form of address for princes of the royal house, to circumvent the questions of age and hierarchical seniority. This is because the title “A ge,” unlike the normal words for “brother” or “sister” in Chinese, does not indicate the relative age of the addressed and addressee, a highly sensitive issue for courtesans. In this translation, the unusualness of this form of address is preserved through the term “my peer,” which stresses the obliteration of age and rank considerations and also remotely hints at the term’s palace origin.
Since sexual service was only part of a courtesan’s trade, all those who entered the profession as apprentices were trained in singing and playing musical instruments. Those who joined the profession as adults, however, had no such training and had to rely on their natural charms to please their clients. (In chapter 20 of this novel, there is a short ac
count of the investment an average owner made to ensure that a courtesan acquired the necessary skills as an entertainer in addition to being physically attractive.) Despite the various skills the high-class courtesans had to learn, the majority was illiterate. Thus even the most intelligent courtesan in this novel (Green Phoenix) relies on a client to read for her the most important document in her life, and even a courtesan with literary pretensions (Jade Wenjun) must depend on someone else to read her the poems dedicated to her. As Christian Henriot points out, the literary courtesan was just a myth.13
Given the large number of prostitutes in Shanghai, the question of their origin naturally arises. It is not easy to determine the native places of individual courtesans, as the majority claimed to have come from Suzhou, where a dialect was spoken that was considered most pleasing to the ear. Given this common perception, girls from these areas would have attracted more attention from abductors and traffickers. It was certainly a fact that the Suzhou dialect dominated the sing-song houses, as courtesans from other regions also used it to sustain the claim that they were from Suzhou.
